Macroblock fought a several price war against its rivals in China in 2017, so its product gross margin significantly dropped. The firm's gross margin in 2Q17 fell to 22.68%, far below 32.81%, the average gross margin in 2016.

Organized at the Langham, Shenzhen, on 19th July, Macroblock LED Display Conference 2017, gathering makers of displays and LED light sources worldwide, ended on a high note as it always did for the past 12 years. At this high-profile annual event, Macroblock’s chairman Dr. Li Chang Yang stated that display technology has been more widely used for various applications in different ways, such as displays in retail spaces, theaters, restaurants with immersive AR technology, and interactive applications.

Organized at the Langham, Shenzhen, on 19th July, Macroblock LED Display Conference 2017, gathering makers of displays and LED light sources worldwide, ended on a high note as it always did for the past 12 years. At this high-profile annual event, Macroblock’s chairman Dr. Li Chang Yang stated that display technology has been more widely used for various applications in different ways, such as displays in retail spaces, theaters, restaurants with immersive AR technology, and interactive applications. 

The LED industry had quite a peaceful time in 1H17. Apart from a few M&As, the most-discussed technology would be Micro LED. Lots of high-tech giants worldwide have already started a series of R&D and the number of participants is getting bigger. The supply chain of Micro LED, although of limited mature technologies, is slowly shaping up. Here, LEDinside lists out major events and milestones made on the path of developing Micro LED in the first half of 2017.

Taiwanese IC driver manufacturer Macroblock has successfully developed LED drivers for small pitch displays, and is eyeing driver solutions for an innovative display technology next year, reported China Post.

The exhibition of LED China 2015 in Shanghai brought a perfect ending right before Chinese Mid Autumn Festival. High definition LED displays are everywhere at the show. Exhibitors demonstrated wide applications of high definition LED displays such as interactive LED screens, video walls of control rooms, alternative LED displays to replace LCD or projection screens for meeting rooms and theaters.

Smart lighting remains a popular topic at Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition 2015. Macroblock targets the lighting applications for public buildings instead of home lighting with the theme “Dimming Art”, bringing many eyeballs during the exhibition.

With the microelectronic techniques and improvement on LED displays, fine pitch LED displays become a more popular solution for replacing indoor displays, such as commercial digital signage in the mall, meeting room, ballroom, TV studio, broadcast room, central control room, and even consumer TV. However, six challenges of fine pitch LED displays still haunt display manufacturers including lower ghosting, dim line at first scan line, uneven brightness, color shift, gradient dim line and cross effect caused by LED failure. These phenomena are obvious when displaying images with more grayscales at low brightness condition.

Macroblock anticipates LED lighting demands to grow, especially in the residential replacement lighting sector, said Chairman LC Yang at the company’s latest investor conference held on May 14, 2014. The company reported revenue of NT $457 million (US $15.1 million) for the first quarter of fiscal 2014. 

Walking along the aisles close to the prototype lighting section at Lighting Japan 2014 at Tokyo Big Sight on Jan. 17, one could not miss the heavily perfumed smells of roses and stock that drifted out from Taiwanese LED manufacturer Macroblock’s booth.

In the second quarter of next year the FIFA World Cup Brazil will feature top grade LED displays in 14 playing venues. With LED display panel driver IC demand starting to emerge, Macroblock chairman Dr. Li-Chang Yang expressed that the company has been receiving an influx of customer orders and the increased output volume has become one of the divers for operation in the second half of the year.

The widespread use of LED display allows advertisers to apply more interactive campaigns with audiences, and the QR code is proven to be an effective way for marketing campaigns on LED displays or LED billboards. However, the popular use of QR code on LED display brings a higher threshold in LED display technology. Critical Limitations of QR Code Scan-ability on LED Display The errors below are common in LED display applications to affect QR code scan-ability. 1.  Positioning Failure in Position Detection Patterns Position detection p...

Some Taiwan-based IC suppliers have been ramping their shipments of LED driver ICs to China thanks to the fledging LED lighting industry in the country and growing demand for LED backlight products from China-based smartphone, tablet and consumer electronic product makers. Among the IC vendors, Macroblock and On-Bright Electronics are expected to see their revenues grow over 30% sequentially in the second quarter, while fellow companies Richtek Technology and Global Mixed-mode Technology (GMT) are likely to double their shipments of LED driver ICs on qu...

Overview   Organized by LEDinside, LEDforum China of International Market Trend and Lighting Applications will be grandly open in Shenzhen on May 27, 2011.   LEDforum 2011 will focus on the market trend of LED lighting application, and the agenda speakers include top leaders from Aixtron, Epilight, Macroblock, Osram, Philips Lumileds, Seoul Semiconductor, Veeco and other industry giants. These industry heavy weights will share with us their unique industry perspectives and accurate market forecasts, including market dynamics, business strateg...

In response to the trend of energy saving and environment protection, Macroblock launches the first low power consumption 16-bit LED display driver - MBI5035, which features low knee voltage of 0.2V to reduce power consumption of LED display as well as carbon emissions up to 35%. "To implement the environmental protection concept, Macroblock presents MBI5035.” said Macroblock general manager Robert Chen. “LED display embedded with MBI5035 brings power saving and cost saving to advertisers. Facing with the worldwide rising electricity fees and en...

Overview LEDinside is the market research institute specialized for global LED industry. Orgainized by LEDinside, LEDforum China of International Market Trend and Lighting Applications will be grandly open in Shenzhen On May 27, 2011. Management from well-known LED industry giants of the world will be invited as forum speakers. If you want to learn about Asian LED market trend, business opportunities and how to make it in the competitive LED market, you are sincerely invited to LEDforum 2011. Conference Title: LEDforum China of Internationa...

Macroblock introduces a new non-isolated, step-down and high efficiency AC / DC LED driver, MBI6902, especially for T8 and E27 lighting applications. The MBI6902 achieves superior efficiency in high brightness LED lighting applications. For example, the efficiency is over 90% when lighting up 6-LEDs @ VAC =110V, 350mA. The MBI6902 is able to drive external MOSFET current up to 3A. In addition, the MBI6902 requires only a few external components. The high efficiency and compact solution of MBI6902 make it most applicable for T8, E27 and general ...

Macroblock introduces a high efficiency 60V, 1A DC/DC buck converter-MBI6661 for LED street light, wall washer and tunnel light applications. MBI6661 accepts wide input voltage range from 9V to 60V and provides up to 97% efficiency. The maximum externally adjustable output current is 1A with ±5% current accuracy. MBI6661 integrates the power switch and is able to drive an array of 10~14 pieces of 1W LEDs by a 52V DC power supply. With hysteretic PFM control scheme, MBI6661 requires no external compensation with better efficiency at light loading...

FPD equipment maker Mirle Automation and LED driver IC designer Macroblock had jointly developed an LED display control system—— Mirle 503. Mirle noted the Mirle 503 had a built-in Macroblock MBI5042 16-channel constant current LED driver with 16-bit PWM (pulse width modulation) control. With the MBI5042, all output channels could be built with 16-bit color depth (65,536 gray scales).

China 60th National Day has just come to a spectacular end. The Tiananmen Square in Beijing was beautified by a lot of LED displays with abundant color and uniform brightness expressing the congratulations to the National Birthday. Some of these LED displays were provided by Beijing Leyard Co. and GULX Tech Co. Macroblock also shines in the ceremony with constant current LED drivers adopted in these LED displays.

Macroblock adopts the leading clock reverse engine in the newly launched 3-channel constant current LED driver, MBI6020, to assure the transmission reliability for LED architectural lighting applications.

Spurred by an influx of orders for the 2010 World Expo Shanghai, LED maker Macroblock’s revenues surged 30% MoM to $4.26 million in August; the growth momentum is expected to extend through September. Macroblock’s third quarter revenues is expected to reach $12 million, a QoQ growth of 34%, which is far higher than the previous estimate of 10~15% growth released at the investor’s conference.

Macroblock, a Taiwan-based manufacturer of LED driver, has released its half-year results of 2009, assessed the business environment, and outlined the business strategy at the investor conference on August 05, 2009. In 2009 half-year financial report, Macroblock reached revenue of NTD553 millions, decreased by 12.4% compared to that of the same period of last year. The consolidated gross profit margin reached 42.8%. The net income was NTD69.8 millions and the earnings after income tax was NTD2.28 per share.

Macroblock introduces a step-down, non-isolated, and high efficiency AC - DC controller, MBI6901, that can deliver constant current to light up high brightness LED and stabilize the LED lighting system. The MBI6901 is able to drive external MOSFET current up to 3A for T-8 CFL replacement, general illumination and power supply for light panel. The MBI6901 accepts universal AC input from 80VAC to 265VAC and regulates the accuracy of preset output current within ±5% by switching the external MOSFET.

LEDinside has recently visited Dr. Li-Chang Yang, Chairman of Taiwan’s LED  IC manufacturer Macroblock Tech, to get some knowledge about the current situation on the global LED display (LED advertising screen) market, and the future developing direction of the company.  

Macroblock launches a new 16-bit PWM LED driver with 8-bit digital dot correction, MBI5040. To provide uniformed LED brightness and accurate LED color for high-end LED display panels, “matched LEDs” are insufficient, and dot correction of each LED pixel becomes necessary. However, it is costly and complex to process dot correction through controllers for the increasing loading of the controllers and the limited control of LED pixels.

Macroblock announced its newly-developed 8-channel and 4-channel constant current LED drivers –MBI1828 and MBI1824, for the application of LCD monitor and high brightness LEDs. Since LED contains no mercury and provides highly directional light source, it is suitable for backlighting applications to provide high brightness. By high voltage process technology, MBI1828 and MBI1824 are designed to light up cascaded LEDs in single channel with high luminance.

Macroblock, a leading manufacturer of LED driver, today released its annual results of fiscal year 2008 and the first quarter results of 2009. The gross profit margin in the first quarter of 2009 outperformed that of the same period of last year. In addition, Macroblock also assessed the business environment and outlined the business strategy at the investor conference held by Gre Tai Securities Market (the GTSM) at Grand Formosa Regent Taipei on April 29, 2009.

Macroblock introduces a new step-down DC/DC converter, MBI6651, to drive 1A output current with efficiency up to 93%. With merely 0.45ohm of switch ON resistance, MBI6651 reduces the power consumption on IC at rated voltage. Additionally, the internal start-up scheme eliminates the inrush current and limits it within 1.15 times of preset current. Besides, MBI6651 features constant current and provides uniform brightness with excellent output current accuracy up to ±5%(Max.).

Macroblock launches a new 40V PWM-embedded 3-channel constant current LED driver, MBI6030, for LED architectural lighting applications. MBI6030 may cascade over 250 RBG LED clusters or large LED pixels at a distance of 2 meters between two clusters or pixels. Moreover, MBI6030 provides 16-bit gray scales at a low clock frequency of 4MHz.